


The Art of Moving On (And Being Left Behind)

by FruitofSorrow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers are mentioned - Freeform, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, M/M, Original Character(s), Regret, Steve and Peggy have kids, Time Travel, the problem with moving on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:43:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FruitofSorrow/pseuds/FruitofSorrow
Summary: Sarah Rogers-Carter travels to her father's previous timeline seventy-four years into the future. There she meets Bucky Barnes, the man her father left behind, and whose relationship with Steve Rogers she has never fully understood. She would like some insight into that, but unfortunately, that's not the only reason she's making the jump. Her father is missing, and she thinks his old friend might be able to help.





	The Art of Moving On (And Being Left Behind)

Sarah Rogers-Carter tapped the green screen on her wristwatch for her coordinates and time. She had traveled from a distant universe, one in which the wonders of the twenty-first century had not yet come to be.

When the screen blared with a series of numbers, she hummed contentedly.

“So this is Brooklyn,” she said aloud to herself, eyes scanning the dark streets of her father’s hometown. 

Steve Rogers, or Captain America as he’d once been called, had set foot on these cobbled stones as a child. It was here where he’d gotten into fights with the other kids from his impoverished neighborhood. Here, where he’d lived some of his happiest memories, as well as some of his worst.

It was a world he’d left behind twice: once, as a young man with dreams and aspirations for a future alongside the woman he loved, and again, a broken man with nothing but a compass and deep longing for the life that destiny had torn from him. 

Sarah stepped onto the sidewalk, eyes on her GPS as she followed the blinking dot to the house farthest down the street. She looked up to see the light scatter of snow on the pavement already beginning to melt. The trees were bare, the moon that hung between the branches illuminated the night like a silver ornament. Like the silver underside of her father’s shield.

Sarah let out a stuttering breath.

She and her brother had always marveled at the stories of their father’s heroism, and the trials and tribulations he faced along the way, as well as the friends whose love and support bolstered Steve Rogers, and gave him something for which to fight. All of those lives, whether they knew it back then or not, had converged _here_. The point of origin. The place of her father’s heart.

In it were Erskine and Stark: the men who gave him the strength to fight. Peggy Carter: the woman who taught him to believe in himself and the good he could do with his gifts. And James Barnes, “Bucky,” who had had been at his side since childhood: his biggest supporter and best friend. 

So much could be said about Bucky Barnes, but history had written that he followed Steve almost reverently, without question, even when Steve had nothing to offer him in return. They were as close to real brothers as two people could be. But Steve Rogers’ and James Barnes’ relationship could not be summarized so succinctly as in the pages of a textbook. It could not be shoved inside a neat package, ready to be unwrapped and consumed.

There had been something else there—something profoundly distinct from the other relationships her father had kept. A trust, a bond, that Sarah could only begin to guess at.

Growing up with Peggy for a mother, and Howard Stark as her rich, eccentric “uncle,” Sarah had witnessed the power each had to make those around them feel safe and _valued_. She could only surmise that their guidance had been invaluable to the formation of Steve Rogers’ upstanding character and morals, too. But what did she know about Bucky, the man who had perhaps shaped her father most of all? 

Only that his memory had plagued Steve Rogers for nearly a lifetime. That it had created a gaping hole in his heart that not even the James Barnes from the new universe could fill.

In truth, the little Sarah knew about Bucky she had gathered from observing the man her father rescued from Hydra shortly after creating an alternate universe. This James Barnes had been her godfather, the man who taught her how to shoot, and who’d been a reliable fixture in the Rogers-Carter household. She wanted to know more—know the man her father had loved and not just the one he’d saved.

But finding the truth about James Barnes was only part of the reason she was here. In actuality, the plight that had propelled Sarah Rogers-Carter into journeying to a parallel universe seventy-four years into the future was one that brought her significant fear and sorrow; and only after having exhausted all her connections and leads, had Sarah been dragged here, to the home of the man himself. 

The man whom she suspected could have all the answers.

*

Sarah stashed away her knife in the pocket of her jeans. There hadn’t been a light in the house from the street, but that didn’t mean nobody was home, and she didn’t want to knock first and risk an unfavorable reception. Sarah wanted to get at least a glimpse of the life that existed behind these doors before they slammed in her face. If a little unsolicited scouting brought her the answers she sought, then she’d have to live with the guilt of breaking and entering. 

Sarah sighed, realizing precisely to what extent she was her parents’ daughter.

Slowly, she pried open the front door and was greeted by a staircase leading to the second floor. The hallway was dark, but beyond the entryway, she saw what could be a living room, and to her right, a closet. She took one glance upstairs before following the hallway farther into the house.

With her father’s serum running through her veins, her eyesight was sharper than most people’s, but it was no night-vision. She pulled out a small flashlight from her tool belt and pointed the beam of light at every surface of the home: the fireplace, the coffee table, the window sills. The house looked lived in, warm, but it was evident that the owner didn’t have a housekeeping bone in his body. A thin film of dust covered every decorative item she could see, among which were the photo frames that lined the bookshelf to her left.

Sarah squared her shoulders to face the large mahogany shelves, eyes greedily taking in the contents. Most of the frames were empty, the foggy imprints of long-removed photos visible on the underside of the glass. Sarah’s gaze landed on the biggest of them all, and her breath hitched. 

There were two men in the photo: both middle-aged. One a well-built brunet dressed in black combat gear, a rifle slung over his back. His lips were quirked up at one end, but those gray eyes were a rainstorm of indecipherable emotions. He had a metal arm casually slung over a slightly shorter man’s shoulders. This man was dark-skinned and handsome, and his smile was blinding—a stark contrast to the near stoicism of his companion. He wore a red, white, and blue suit, not unlike the one her father had worn, but with the impressive addition of a pair of metal wings affixed to the back. Sarah’s eyes drifted lower, widening infinitesimally upon recognizing the object in the man’s hands. 

It was her father’s shield. 

No, it wasn’t his anymore—it never really was Steve Rogers’ to begin with. It belonged to Captain America, and it’d been a very long time since her father stopped going by that name.

She forced herself to look away, a phantom grip squeezing her heart. 

That’s when she saw it: her father’s barbershop quartet. Not the one from the ’40s, but the one he’d inadvertently formed while on the run from the international police in the year 2016. 

She recognized her father immediately: the striking blue eyes and dark blond hair, and his broad, reliable shoulders, which she remembered leaning back against as a child when he’d bring out his sketchbook to showcase his latest creations. She wanted to reach into the photo and wrap herself around him, tell him he was missed, and that she’d come to bring him home.

On his left was a younger Bucky Barnes, whose eyes were somehow darker than in his middle-age, and his brown hair an inch or two longer. He was bigger, too, with biceps just as massive as her father’s, and a shoulder-width that could put any hero to shame. There was a wild look to him, like that of an injured animal that’d just come to trust his rescuers. Sarah realized that the photo must have been taken not too long after the fall of Hydra, the terrorist organization that had taken Bucky Barnes captive in the ’40s and groomed him to be a mindless assassin. 

Next to him was the winged captain from the previous photo. _Sam Wilson_ , Sarah thought, the name finally slotting into place. Her father had spoken about him with a deep fondness— had always said that if he could pass the shield to anyone, it would be him. A smile tickled the corners of her lips upon seeing that his wish had come true.

On her father’s right was a beautiful woman with short blonde hair. A flash of red peeked through from the roots, which gave her identity away. _Natasha Romanoff_. Sarah’s namesake. 

Her father had considered her a best friend and confidante—someone with whom he could share anything. They’d had each other’s backs when the whole world was on its knees, and the mad titan Thanos had dusted everyone they cared about. She sacrificed herself to save the world. Without her, Steve Rogers would not have had a second chance to be with Peggy Carter, and Sarah would never have been born. 

Sarah Natasha Rogers-Carter was honored to be named after such an exemplary hero and loyal friend.

She took a step back, eyes prickling, only to come to an abrupt stop when something small and hard was pressed to the back of her head. 

The short sound of a gun being cocked reverberated in her ear. 

“Who the hell are you?”

Sarah let out a ragged breath; her heart was beating fast in her chest.

“Alright, let’s not do anything stupid,” she said, lifting her hands in the air to show that she was unarmed. “I mean no harm.”

The room was quiet for only a beat. 

“You broke into my house.” The voice was gravelly and mature, but Sarah could detect a hint of that familiar Brooklyn accent. 

For a moment, it was like hearing her father’s voice again and she nearly dropped her guard, but she stowed the feeling away.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

The man pulled the barrel of his Glock away from Sarah’s head and clicked on the safety.

“You better start explaining before I change my mind.”

Sarah turned around, arms still in the air. Immediately she noted that Bucky Barnes didn’t look much older than in the first photo. If she didn’t know about the effects of the serum, she would’ve thought it had been taken relatively recent, but with super-soldiers, it was always hard to tell. 

Steve Rogers had returned to the ’40s a decade older than when he’d left it, but because of his body’s slower aging, the physical discrepancy between him and Peggy Carter had been almost negligible. 

Even Sarah had succumbed to these effects, though her version of the serum wasn’t as potent as the one that’d been administered to Captain America. It’d been diluted with her mother’s DNA. She had just turned twenty-six but could easily be mistaken for a nineteen-year-old. 

Sarah’s eyes fell on Barnes’ guarded gaze, and all fierceness in the man’s posture faltered, but it was only a momentary lapse. His metal hand became a fist, the gears in the prosthetic turning threateningly; it happened so quickly she blinked and almost missed it.

“My name is Sarah––” she said, unsure how much to give away. “You knew my father.”

“Don’t know nobody with a kid called Sarah,” he said, and the hand holding the gun moved up toward her chest again. 

Sarah stepped back until her spine pressed against the hard edges of the bookshelf. “Hey, wait a second.”

She hated that she sounded so nervous. She wasn’t afraid of the gun aimed at her, or the man who wielded it. She was scared to mess this up—to do or say the wrong thing and be booted without having gotten the answers for which she’d come.

“You have ten seconds.”

Sarah swallowed. “I—I need your help.”

She could see the resolve in Bucky Barnes’ eyes waver, but the gun didn’t move an inch. 

“My last name is Rogers-Carter.”

He immediately stiffened, the name seemingly having had a magical effect on him. A cloud swirled in his eyes, and his arm fell. He stumbled back until his heels hit the back of a leather armchair. 

_Ah. That did it._

“My father is missing,” said Sarah, testing her voice, “and I need your help to find him.”

*

Despite the unkempt hair and dark circles, and the fact that he had just moments ago aimed a pistol at her, Bucky Barnes wasn’t an egregiously inhospitable host.

He sat across from her, leaning back into the leather armchair he’d knocked into earlier with a leg crossed over the other, his metal arm flexed on the armrest—a reminder that it was there in case she got any funny ideas. But besides the intimidating posturing, he’d allowed her a chance to say her piece. He’d even gone through the trouble to get her some tea.

Sarah thumbed the warm mug in her hands, unable to look away from the scrutinizing gaze of the older man. The problem was she couldn’t find it in her to speak first, and most of her hesitance was owed to the fact that Sarah hardly knew _what_ to say. She felt like an intruder in more ways than just one. Not only had Sarah broken into this man’s home, she knew that what came next would inadvertently open windows into his personal life. His heart. There was no easy way to break the ice.

So she waited, taking a tentative sip of her tea every couple of seconds so that she had an excuse to keep her mouth closed.

When the air got thick and stifling, Bucky Barnes pulled his leg off the other in one graceful move and leaned forward with his hands clasped together.

“You don’t look much like him,” he said, following every curve of her face. 

It was true. Sarah had always been told she took after Peggy, a compliment she took in stride, and how could she not when her mother was gorgeous. It was an even trade-off, all things considered: she’d gotten her mother’s beauty and brains, but her father’s superhuman brawn. It didn’t hurt that both her parents were champions of spirit and heart. Many would say that Sarah had won the genetic lottery.

Bucky Barnes’ Adam’s apple bobbed slightly, his eyes flitting to his lap. 

“What happened to…him?” he murmured.

Sarah perked up, finally, seeing an opening in the wall he’d put up.

She wet her lips.

“We don’t actually know. He was supposed to time travel to the year 2028 but never made it. His contact on the other side made the jump instead and let us know what happened, but by then there wasn’t anything we could do.”

“Why not?” Bucky Barnes’ voice was gruff.

“Even if we had an idea where he’d gone, we would’ve needed to pinpoint the exact time he arrived. That’s something only my father can control…with his wristwatch.” Sarah lifted her hand to show him hers. “Before he goes on time travel missions, he leaves an itinerary. He’s not supposed to deviate from the list in case anything ever goes wrong and we need to extract him.”

“Let me guess,” Bucky said, a dark glint in his eye. “The idiot was nowhere he said he would be.”

Sarah nodded. “My mother…Peggy…was quick to blame his impulsiveness, but after a week passed and still no word from him, she began to worry. As you probably remember, when we time travel, the return time seems almost immediate if you’re a bystander at the place of origin. It doesn’t matter how much time the traveler actually spends at his or her destination. Missing a target doesn’t necessarily mean the person isn’t back, they could have just input the wrong coordinates and wound up across the globe. There are so many factors to consider but say he appeared in China. It would take him at least a couple of days to fly back home. What if he came back hurt? What if his communication device broke, or he “crash-landed” on a deserted island? What should have been a five-second trip would now be a two-week expedition.”

Bucky Barnes’ eyebrows creased in thought. “How long has he been missing for?”

Sarah sighed. “Four weeks.”

Time seemed to slow down as they both processed the words. Sarah had been so focused on getting her father back that she hadn’t really stopped to consider what this all might mean. What if…what if there was nothing to be done? What if her father had been kill—

“What gives you the impression I can help?” There was an accusative edge to Barnes’ inquiry, not aimed at her so much as at a third, omniscient party whose hand had somehow ended up on the table, full of cards.

“My father has done a lot of great things in his life. I don’t need to convince you of that,” Sarah said, letting her voice go soft. “But he’s also made a lot of mistakes, and Steve Rogers isn’t someone who can easily move on from them.”

Bucky’s jaw tensed at that, and Sarah knew what he was thinking.

“He went after you, you know,” she said.

His gray eyes slowly lifted to hers.

“As soon as he arrived in the past, he went to go rescue you from Hydra. He’s always regretted not being there for you when you needed him the most.”

At that, Barnes’ face turned hard. “Then he shouldn’t have left,” he spat. 

Sarah looked down at her mug. She couldn’t help but feel guilty like it was somehow her fault that this man had lost his best friend. In her periphery, she saw Bucky Barnes stand and circle his seat. He placed both hands on the back of the armchair and leaned his weight forward. 

“I’m glad it came back to bite him in the ass.”

There was so much anger on Barnes’ face—so much vitriol that had bubbled to the surface. It was like Sarah had opened a floodgate.

“This is why I came to see you,” Sarah said, returning his glare. As much as she felt sorry for the man, she wasn’t going to sit there and let him speak ill of her father. “I don’t think he was ever able to forgive himself for what he did.”

Barnes’ lips turned up at the corners, but it wasn’t a genuine smile he was aiming for. The look in his eyes remained hard. “You think he might’ve come here.”

Sarah put her mug on the coffee table in front of her and shifted in her seat. “Well, did he?”

Bucky Barnes pushed away from the armchair and turned around to hide his face. He ran his flesh hand through his hair, mussing it up. He looked like a mere gust of wind could break him.

Sarah waited for him to gather his wits—to compose his thoughts. 

A shuddering sigh escaped him. “I haven’t seen him since…since that day.”

The words felt an awful lot like a confession that’d been waiting twenty-five years to be spoken aloud. For the truth that Steve was really gone to sink in.

Sarah felt a sudden pang in her chest. To think that one day, that could be her. That one day she’d look and sound as broken as the man in front of her. And what about her mother? What would her father’s absence do to her at these heights in their life? Peggy Carter might’ve been able to move on from him in this universe, but the circumstances were different now. They hadn’t just shared two tumultuous years in the army; they’d been together almost a lifetime.

“Besides,” Bucky said, mumbling behind his hand. “I doubt he missed me all that much, seeing as how he was easily able to find a replacement.”

Sarah jumped to her feet and went to stand in front of him. She pulled his hand off his face.

“You’re wrong.”

Bucky Barnes’ eyes opened slowly, all fire in them gone. 

“My father did come to love the James Barnes he rescued, but those of us who knew the truth about his return weren’t blind. It was always clear he loved _you_ best of all. The Bucky he grew up with. The Bucky he lost. The Bucky who broke through Hydra’s conditioning because his trust in Steve Rogers was stronger than any mind control.”

Bucky’s lips trembled as he tried to blink back uncooperative tears. 

“Whether he’s shown himself to you or not, there’s no doubt in my mind he’s been here. There has to be some clue, something we’re missing; I can’t be grasping at straws. I can’t—”

Sarah realized she was speaking fast and forced herself to reign the hysteria in. This was all so much to process, and Bucky Barnes hadn’t had the weeks she did to come to grips with the situation. 

_He must be taking this hit hard._

Barnes turned away from Sarah’s touch. The line of his shoulders drooped and his back arched like a cat; he looked sad.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” he said, becoming stone again. “I don’t know anything. I haven’t seen St—“He cut himself off, unwilling to speak the name. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen _him_.”

Sarah didn’t know what to say. A part of her always knew this was a possibility––that Bucky Barnes would be just as in the dark as anyone else. She couldn’t imagine being in his shoes—to have the past come back and hit you all at once, and then learn that your absent friend was not only missing from your world but that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, either. The flurry of emotions he was probably going through, Sarah would never understand it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, never having felt this hollow in her life.

She felt she might’ve made a mistake turning up uninvited and springing this on him. She could see that deep down, despite the bravado and stubbornness he feigned to conceal his misery, Bucky Barnes had never gotten over losing Steve Rogers.

“I’m sorry for coming here, but I felt I had no choice. I really thought he would have…” _Enough. No need to rub salt in his wounds_. “I—I knew this trip was a shot in the dark. I got ahead of myself, let myself believe in the improbable… but I’m not giving up. I’m going to find my father, with or without your help. I just need to know one last thing.”

She looked the weary man in the eye.

“You knew him better than anyone. You know what kind of places he frequented, what kind of company he kept. Where would you go looking next?”

Bucky Barnes straightened as he breathed in deeply. He looked over his shoulder at her. 

Sarah was taken aback by the sudden openness in the clear gray eyes, which were saying: _I may be defeated, but there is still hope left in me_. “In all the years I knew him, during the war, and even after Hydra, Steve has only ever needed one thing to guide him: his moral compass.”

She quirked a brow. 

The brunet scoffed. “Though he took the term a little too literally.” 

Sarah felt like she was missing out on something— an inside joke, perhaps.

“He kept it in a dingy old thing. How it survived all those years, I don’t know, but he held onto it like it was his lifeline. If he’s lost somewhere, he’ll go looking for that first.”

“A compass? Where can I find it?”

Bucky Barnes shrugged. “Who’s to know. It could be behind a glass case in some museum or safeguarded in one of SHIELD’s storage facilities. It could even be in a cardboard box in any number of the old Avengers’ basements, for all I care.”

“But not yours?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never wanted anything of his.”

The words _I just wanted him_ , hung in the air.

Sarah’s lips pressed into a line. 

“That’s all I can tell you.” Bucky Barnes made his way to the front of the house and pulled the door open, he hesitated a moment before stepping aside and looking back at her. 

He was asking her to leave. Sarah didn’t dawdle; she made sure she had all her things and caught up with him at the doorway. 

“I’m sorry for having bothered you,” she told him again, holding his gaze, “but thank you. For everything.” _Everything you did for my dad. For loving him all these years._

“You apologize a lot. Y’know that?” He grumbled almost sheepishly.

Sarah offered him a smile and pulled her jacket closer to her body before stepping out into the cold street. A crack of light blue was starting to appear on the horizon, signaling the nearing of dawn. She’d been at Barnes’ house for little less than an hour and hadn’t realized how close to morning it’d been. She regarded Bucky once more before heading down the street again.

“He asked me to go with him,” Barnes said, stopping Sarah in her tracks. 

She turned to him. His face was dark, silhouetted by the glow from the living room lights. 

“The night before he left. He asked me to go with him.”

Sarah held her breath, though she didn’t know why. It felt as though she were learning a secret—a version of the events nobody except Barnes and her father knew. The version that had eluded her all these years.

“And I said no.”

A ragged sigh passed through her lips, and with it, all her uncertainty.

If before, Sarah had viewed Barnes as a pitiful victim, she saw now that she’d been mistaken. All this time she’d seen her father as the villain in Bucky Barnes’ life—the traitor, the _deserter_. She was glad her father had made the choice he did, but every decision comes at a cost, and this one exacted a terrible price: a decades-old friendship. If Sarah were put in the same position as Steve Rogers, she didn’t know if she’d choose the same.

But Bucky Barnes was no victim. At least not in the way she’d always suspected. Both he and her father made a choice that day to change the course of their lives. Both were equal perpetrators of the grief and regret that plagued them in the years to come. The tragedy of their bond wasn’t how the end of the line had been reached, but that there’d been no avoiding its absolute devastation. 

Best friends on schoolyard and battlefield, perhaps, but not always agents of their own destinies. After their last great mission, they’d been given their first-ever chance to _choose_.

Steve Rogers chose the quiet life after years of fighting for the world—a permanent job that took and took, and wore him down. Then there was Bucky Barnes, who was dragged into wars he never wanted to be a part of, only to come out the other end with renewed purpose—with people and ideals to fight for. Their paths had stopped converging long ago, and they didn’t realize it until it was time to say goodbye. Until it was time to give their lives a new meaning.

Sarah nodded curtly, and Bucky Barnes returned the gesture. He lingered a moment under the threshold before shutting the door on her—on every living reminder of what’d been his life.

But Sarah could not do the same. There was so much she still had to do, so much ground she needed to cover to find her father, and time was not on her side. 

She headed down the street again, kicking into a sprint midway. The road would be long and arduous, as most roads were, but her course was set. And she was determined to follow through.


End file.
